TIME BOMB

Introduction By Mark Reed I have always been interested in Natural disasters, like Hurricane’s, Tornado’s, Tsunami’s and other natural phenomena. I enjoy watching the Discovery Channel with my son Harry as a relaxing time after work, school sometimes. When all the media frenzy occurred in March 2010 regarding the Icelandic volcanic eruption it was as if the Discovery Channel was now on every news channel, every time I picked up a newspaper or turned on the TV, there it was Eyjafjallajokull the longest hardest sounding word I have ever heard of and the bane of many a newsreader who must have had nightmares each night at having to endlessly announce the continuing eruption of the impossibly sounding volcano from Iceland. I was amazed that a seemingly smallish eruption 1000 miles from the UK and Europe could cause such disruption to everyone’s lives, even my son Harry was telling me that one of his teachers from school was trapped in the USA and it took her five weeks to get back to work. One of my closest friend’s son was trapped in Perugia in Italy and after incessant phone calls and discussions, his son had to get trains, buses, and minicabs costing my friend a pretty penny or two to get him home to Blighty. As all this mayhem continued and I saw Michael O ‘Leary’s ( Ryanair’s MD ) unhappy face moaning about compensating thousands of stranded travellers for an act of god that wasn’t his fault. I started thinking about what would happen to all of us in Europe should a much larger volcano blow its top, how the effects would be magnified, how people would cope with being separated from their families and friends, how would we get food from the shops, water to drink, electricity, gas and all the other thousands of issues that make up our complicated lifestyles in the 21st century. I then was browsing through one of the various volcano websites on the net , as one does after work sometimes and I came across Laki a huge strato volcano and fissure volcano over in Iceland , the fateful eruptions of 1783 and 1784 when most of Europe and the UK was covered by a yellowish poison gas cloud from an Icelandic volcano and approximately 6 million people died worldwide and it possibly also caused the French Revolution. The more I read I was flabbergasted, I didn’t know anything about this eruption which occurred about 230 years ago and I have had a good education and have been reading Encyclopaedia’s and other reference books since I was 12 and read newspapers or books every single day on my way to and from work on the underground between Hendon Central and Waterloo on the blessed Northern Line, since I have had my latest job down in Clapham Junction I am going through a decent sized novel a week and am probably keeping Waterstones afloat single handed. How could something so important be hidden away in some technical papers from some Icelandic Institute of Volcanology and no one know about this eruption that didn’t occur in Java or Indonesia but here in the UK and Europe. The more I read the more determined I was that I would write a book about all the Icelandic volcanoes and there massive effect on Icelandic and European and world history over the last 10,000 years. It seemed that many major events in world history were shaped by volcanic eruptions and yet no one seemed to know much about it. We all know that Vesuvius blew up in 79 ACE and covered Pompeii with 20 metres of volcanic ash and the sad curled up figures of those burnt or roasted alive citizens of Pompeii in the ash are there for all the tourists to gawp at, however that was 2,000 years ago, not today. Some of us know that Santorini , or Thera as it was known, blew up in 1600 BCE and destroyed the Minoan Civilization, some of you may even have heard about Krakatoa which blew up with a mighty bang in 1883 in Java , however that is probably the extent of our knowledge of this subject. Some of the Icelandic volcanoes have caused massive devastation across Europe and have affected weather patterns and possibly caused mini ice ages across Europe for thousands of years, quite a few of them have had such huge eruptions that volcanic ash has fallen from Norway to Helsinki and Ireland. Frankly I am amazed to find anyone still living in Iceland, they are surely hardy people descended from extremely tough and resourceful Vikings, no wonder we Anglo Saxons were terrified of the Vikings when they descended on the UK in the 8th Century ACE. So I was driven to write my book, always checking the news to see if another volcano had blown its top. I felt that if I helped people prepare for the really big eruption that was bound to come sooner or later that at least I could say later, well I did what I could, it’s up to people after reading my book to at least make an educated decision as to whether or not they want to make some provision for the definite next huge Icelandic eruption, which as sure as night follows day will occur one day, month or year very soon. I have used various source material for this book including Wikipedia the on line encyclopaedia which I think is a great resource tool for anyone writing a book, magazine articles or newspaper report, I have also used much information regarding how people in Britain coped during the Second World War , although we won’t be bombed by the Luftwaffe or our ships sunk by the Kriegsmarine this time, the effects could be similar so I have mentioned occasionally how our grandparents coped 70 years ago with shortages of food, clothes, fuel and other hardships that they faced. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my long suffering wife Lisa for putting up with me for the last 7 months it has taken to write this book and for bringing me endless supplies of lemon tea to keep me going. My son Harry has contributed the makers of some of the children’s medicine’s and has encouraged me to write the book as then I am near his bedroom so he can hear me tapping away on the computer each night whilst he falls asleep. I would also like to thank my daughter Valentine who I sent a sampler of the book to and she was amazed that I could actually string a few sentences together and when she actually read it properly she was very encouraging and gave me much moral support. Lastly and not least I would like to thank my mother Annette who lives in Limoges, France ( still within striking distance of Laki’s poisonous gases unfortunately ), who commented that it was a little depressing and it needed to be more cheerful and positive, cheers mum, I did try and put a happy ending on the book though !! Very finally and definitely lastly I would like to thank all my wife’s 6 sisters and 2 brothers and mother in law who have teased me at every opportunity about buying cans of baked beans and rude associated jokes, this has indeed spurred me on to ensure that I make a success of the book, just so I can invite them to the European launch of the book and see them all go green when it becomes a best seller, and yes I will personally deliver a copy of my book to each of them with a can of beans attached. My fervent hope is that this book will not be needed in the next few years, however my research tells me that volcanoes in Iceland do erupt with monotonous regularity about every 3 years, so it may be dear reader that you end up reading this book by torch or gas light from your darkened living room, whilst tucking into a can of cold baked beans, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be sitting in my house eating my cold beans saying to my wife, those six famous words that no wife likes to hear, “I told you to buy more beans darling”. However when Katla, Laki or Bardarbunga goes up I guarantee there will be no beans, or any other foods on the shelves of Tesco, ASDA or Sainsbury’s to buy so you had better stock up whilst you still can, read on for more information on “how to survive the upcoming Icelandic eruption”. Have a look at my website www.icelandicvolcanoes.co.uk wit